Technical Field
Subject matter disclosed herein relates to intra-vehicular communications.
Discussion of Art
Intra-vehicular communication plays an important role in various public and cargo transportation systems (e.g., cruises, trams, metros, articulated buses, trains, and cargo ships) to ensure safety and stable operation of the vehicle. Initially, intra-vehicular communication systems were used for signaling and controlling purposes. However, recent communication systems support many passenger-assisting applications such as passenger information services, public announcements, video surveillance, intercom, heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC), broadband services, and data-driven control systems.
In the present day, most of the intra-vehicular communication systems are operated as wired communication systems. A conventional wired intra-vehicular communication system relies on wired lines which are laid along vehicle body and interconnecting couplers. However, physical wires are cumbersome to install, maintain, and troubleshoot. In some cases, various parts of wired networks are required to be replaced frequently. For example, couplers between carriages in articulated buses/trains/metros/trams have to be regularly replaced and maintained, since the constant motion of the carriages caused the contacts of the couplers to wear out.
Furthermore, wired systems have fixed bandwidths, limited data rates, and a limited number of ports. Wired systems cannot be expanded without reinstalling wires across the vehicle. Thus, a wired communication system is expensive and not efficient to upgrade to accommodate future demands. Especially, wired systems are not scalable and practicable enough to provide individually customized user services (e.g., broadband access, multimedia services) for thousands of passengers.
The use of wireless technologies for intra-vehicular communication is an economical, expandable, reliable, and user-friendly alternative to wired communications. Moreover, it is easy to upgrade wireless systems to support emerging passenger related applications in the future. Hence, wireless communication is a natural fit for intra-vehicular communication.
However, existing architectures are not able to adequately address security challenges in wireless intra-vehicular communication systems. Specifically, open air transmission exposes the control and user traffic to third party attackers. These attackers may not have the best intentions and may try to exploit the data transmitted over air interfaces. In particular, an alteration or an interruption of the control data may result in compromising the safety and the smooth operation of the vehicle. Therefore, it is desirable to have a system and method for providing secure intra-vehicular communications.